in the language of the enemy
by xshedreamsinredx
Summary: Mahrana Pratap/ Phool Kunwar. Post 16-09-2015. He steals her away but only because she lets him.


**Pairing:** Maharana Pratap/Phool Kunwar  
 **Fandom:** Maharana Pratap (Sony Tv) **  
Warning:** Rated T for suggestions, I guess. **  
Notes:** I never realized that I could ship a pairing so much on a Hindi historical drama until I watched last night episode of Maharana Pratap, I took the creative liberty of messing with the script because isn't that the purpose of fanfictions? **  
Disclaimer:** I claim no connection to the show or any historical accuracy whatsoever. All rights are reserved to the respective parties. The purpose of this fanfiction is to entertain fans and not to tarnish any party involved in any discernible manner. Thank you very much.

* * *

 **in the language of the enemy**

 _"He'll burn you down like wax if you let him._  
 _You'll think it's love, when he dines on your heart._  
 _And maybe it will be."_

-Catherynne M. Valente

.

.

.

There is an army itching for the battle cry positioned outside Marwar and there is a war breaking her heart. He knows this because he knows her, from all the times she fought with him, from all the times she was fond of him.

"You don't have to do this." He announces in front of her father, her brother, an entire platoon of Rajput men who have no particular affinity towards him as it is. He is just sealing their differences by being here, offering her the choice, further. "If you do not wish to marry that Mughal, you don't have to."

Stubbornness sets her chin apart even as she appears increasingly fragile. "I will mull over it before I let my words loose."

She looks like she could hate him if she tried. He's never given it a thought before but he would hate to see her succeeding.

—

He finds her in the garden amidst flowers and parchment, left loose in contrast to her severe self.

"Phool," she tilts her bowed head to chance a glance at him, "don't fool yourself into thinking you have no options, you can back away from this abomination of a marriage anytime you want."

She looks up somewhere to the left of his face. Not quite meeting his eyes, not quite shying away from them. "Then tell me, Kunwar Pratap, what possible options do I have?" The trembling of her fingers makes him want to reach out and still them, if not for the boundaries figuring them apart. "He will march to war if the proposal is rejected, he will crush Marwar under his feet and I can't, _I won't_ , allow that to happen. I have certain duties to uphold."

Her words are heavier than the voice that accompanies them. It's probably the first time he realizes how much they have grown up and grown apart. "They taught us in preemptive strategies to contemplate every alternative route before adopting a due course of action," he begins, attempting to placate her the only way he knows how, equipping her in the art of war, "you will have valuable Rajput princes lining up for your hand. Kings and princes willing to extend protection and support to Marwar. Even against the Mughal."

"I am no trophy that kingdoms will go to war for." It's strangely deflating to see her evolved into a girl hollowed out by circumstances. "No men, princes or king line up to fight for a cause already lost."

Perhaps it's the quivering of her delicate frame that she can't seem to control, or the tears in her eyes that she won't allow to fall, that makes him tell her: "I would."

She startles, he can tell, by the way her eyes widen, "I would line up for your hand if it means sparing you the horror of marrying him. No Rajput should have to be coerced into such an alliance."

"Thank you so very much," she smooths her expression into a patronizing one. "I appreciate your sacrificial sentiments, from one Rajput to another."

It burns but only because she hadn't meant it to.

—

He dreams of her in trappings of colour that night, in lavish drapes of crimson and imprints of spiraling henna on her stiflingly soft palms. He knows they are soft, from the persistent residual of memory he has failed to forget on more occasions than one.

Caught between pressures of a family lined with cowardice and the meandering obsession of a man who wants her as a prized possession, she seems irrevocably sad within the confines of discomfiting mirages his head plays.

He never wishes to see her like that again.

That's probably part of the problem right there.

—

"I dreamt of you." He tells her when he comes across her in the palace corridors. He won't be leaving until he hears her answer straight from her mouth.

"As a bride?" Her skin is mottled with bruises unseen. She will be a queen someday, regal and dignified in every sense a queen is supposed to be. Just not his, never his, not even with the backing of their shared childhood and halfhearted enmity.

The wry, pained grimace that crosses her lips has him wanting to hold on to this lapse in time a bit longer. "As a queen?"

He remembers a time she used to dream of being a queen. His queen.

The reminder is nearly enough to justify the tightening of his hand on his sheathed sword while his eyes treacherously wander down to the quivering structure of her collarbone. Because even if a brat as a child, she has always been beautiful. "As a woman."

She flushes, shocked and embarrassed and if he thinks about it long enough, she should know better. Obscenity is inherent to truth. "I-" he can see her painful struggle for words, it is amusing in a way it has never been before. "I - I have to attend to Dauji Raj."

She leaves in a dash of dangling crystal bangles and flurry of silks.

He's proud of his control, he only looks back once.

—

He steals into her room in the dead of the night to discover her staring bleakly at the grand display of bridal trousseau pooled at her feet. The polished jewels and ostentatious fabrics are more searing than he wants to admit to. "Phool."

She rises, alarmed, from her place on the floor. Her skirts trail after her as she stands to her full stature, attempting to reconcile with his presence in her room. "You shouldn't be here."

"I am leaving in the morning." He tells her only to see something akin to disappointment surface and die somewhere in her face. "I want to hear your answer before I leave."

She is clad in clothes no man is meant to see her in. It is a violation on his part, a discomfiture on hers. "I will do what my duty dictates me to," she crosses her arms in a defensive posture that serves do nothing than make her appear more vulnerable, "what Marwar requires of me."

She drops her gaze to the floor suddenly conscious of her clothing choice. "This is highly inappropriate, you will tarnish my reputation if caught." And as if flustered by the reminder, she swerves around to give him her back.

He finds himself looking away only to be looking back. "I would never let that happen." The sincerity of his words weighs her down while the dropping of her frail shoulders gives him leeway to continue. "He has always loved you."

"No, he hasn't. Not the in the way you have always loved Ajabde." She looks back up at him against the shadow of her shoulder, almost wistful in her childlike longing. "He has only ever wanted me. And now, _he gets me_ , gets to add me to his collection of beautiful, cultured, and well curated women."

It's the resignation in her tone that has him clenching and unclenching his hands into balled fists. He could steal her away if he wants. "I would fight for Marwar in the same vein I would fight for Mewar, I would lay my life down for it. You just have to say the word and I will take you away from this."

The silence is louder than the words he'd let his mouth stumble upon in his rather weak moment. His father would disapprove terribly. "I won't ask you that for Marwar. It is too grave a burden."

He crosses the distance only to stand at a halt across from her and gives the promise that could doom an entire nation. "Then ask me for yourself."

She finally turns around to face him, all unintended longing and unvoiced supplications. "…I can't."

Something aches to the left of his chest. She is more beautiful in the moment than she has ever been. "Just for a moment, forget about the war, your people, your father, Marwar." Tears draw to her eyes, they have too many memories and not nearly enough recess in between. "Under different circumstances, what would have your answer been?"

He braces himself to hear the refusal. Taking in the way her eyes dart away from him his face and around the room, trailing dying flowers, her strewn bridal outfit, the broken glass bangles before they return to meet his. "Yes." She whispers and the relief he feels is almost blinding, "yes, " she says again, a tad more firmly, "a thousand times over."

—

The course of history changes in less than a night. He steals her away but only because she lets him.

.

.

.

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 **Author's note:** Well, I know for a fact that Maharana Pratap marries Phool Kunwar but I wanted it to happen in a rather dramatic way, so here it is. Anyways, I hope you liked it. I would love and appreciate feedback if you have a few seconds to spare.


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